Simple Tips to Manage Metro Apps in Windows 8

In this post I am sharing tips which you can use to manage the metro apps on Windows 8. This will be handy if you are a new user to Windows 8 and managing apps can be tricky for the first time.

View List all the installed Apps :

Right click anywhere on the Start Screen and you will get to see the menu bar which has an icon saying “All Apps”. Click on it and you will see list of apps installed in Windows 8. Some of them will be organized into categories like System Apps etc.

If you have a huge list, Zoom in to view sort options which is according to alphabets and categories. Select any of them and you will see apps from that section. However, selecting any of them doesn’t just display apps only from that alphabet or category but you get to see other apps too which is kind of consuming, specially if you have just one or two apps in that category.

Apps installed from Store :

The above list includes everything installed on your Windows 8, even the system apps. If you just want to find out apps installed from Windows 8 Store, you need to use the Windows 8 Store App.

Launch the program

Right click on white space or empty area on the app and you will see the Menu bar appearing, this time from the top.

You will have an option which says “Your Apps”

Select and you will see the list of apps installed from the store.

What you should notice here is that apps which are listed here are not necessarily installed. For every app, you will see the information of its installation. So when you right click on an app, you can install it if its not installed. You can also use the sort filter to bring the list of apps which are bought but not installed.

Remove or Uninstall :

This is something you will appreciate in Windows 8. To remove any app and its data, you do not need to go to Add / Remove Program anymore, but you need to right click and you will get an option which says “Uninstall App” which will remove the app right from there. Depending on where you right clicked an application i.e. Start Screen or App List you will also get option to Pin or Unpin from the start menu.

Force Update :

Since apps will be downloaded from Windows 8 Store now, getting an update will be lot smoother. You will not have to worry about it at all, but if you think for some reason, the update has been delayed or not coming to you, You can do a force update. Follow the steps below :

Launch the Windows 8 Store App

Launch the Charms menu by either swiping from bottom corner or hit Win + C and select settings.

This will open the Menu bar for App store. Look for an option which says App Updates.

Open it and look for a button which says Check for Upates.

Additionally make sure the option to auto update apps is turned on and your license is synced.

Run App as Administrator :

It is interesting to notice that you cannot run Metro Apps with admin privilege. There is no run as administrator for them, but if there are Desktop Apps or System utilities, they can be run as administrator.

Select the program and right click or long press to get menu bar option for “Run as Administrator”

Closing the Metro Application :

You can always use Alt + F4 to close any app. It just works but if you want a fancy way to close it, try reading a long explanation below.

Catch them using their head i.e. If you are using a mouse, Move the pointer to top middle and it will turn into a hand which you can use to drag down to bottom and drop it. This will close the application. However to let you know that in Windows 8, Apps don’t take much memory and are kept in standby state, when not in use.

Others :

Privacy : If you do not want Apps to use your data, you might like to turn of location usage and permission to use your name & picture. You might also want help Windows Store to get access to what kid of web content the app uses.

This setting is under PC Settings > Privacy.

Sharing : You can control what apps can be used for sharing data. This is completely under your control, but if you want to list which apps has to be used, you can do it under PC Settings > Share.

Search : Windows Search can also dig into the app data and display in search. Most of the time this will be helpful, but apps can be removed from this under PC Settings > Search.

Turn of the Live Tile : Though this will be like killing the metro but if you find some apps have distracting Live Tile or even useless, just right click, and you will see the option to turn off live tile.

This guide is part of our series of Windows 8 Videos, Tutorials, Apps and How To

About Ashish Mohta

A Professional Tech blogger, Editor and Writer who talks about solving day to day problems of people who use computer. His expertise are in Windows 7, Microsoft Office, Software, Mobile Apps and Video Posts.